


Dig the Needle In

by Actual_Writing_Trashcan



Series: Colossus Hyperfixation Collection [6]
Category: Deadpool (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Depictions of Abuse, Depictions of Death, F/M, Happy ending though, So much angst, Strong Language, i am the angst queen after all, implied panic attacks, it was going to happen at some point, needles and descriptions of injections, oof, the reader goes through the wringer, there are enough death scenes that i tagged for violence, this one's dark, vague mental illness problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 01:27:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15546576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Actual_Writing_Trashcan/pseuds/Actual_Writing_Trashcan
Summary: This short story looks at your problems with your past, your powers, and yourself. When your methods for controlling your more dangerous powers are found out, you run away from the X-Mansion to spend some time with your mysterious benefactor.This one's dark. It's not Stephen King, by any means, but it's a stark departure from all the fluff I've been writing.Mental health stuff is kept vague so multiple people can identify with it.





	Dig the Needle In

You know what you are. You know what you’re capable of.

Despite everyone’s misconceptions --one that Wade keeps feeding with all of his “Last Airbender” and “windbag” jokes--your powers aren’t wind based. They’re  _air_  based.

There’s a lot you can do with air. It’s a highly versatile material. Most of it manifests in the form of wind and air currents, but your abilities go so much... further than that.

Rupturing ear drums. Making people pass out from altering atmospheric pressure. Causing lungs to burst by way of over-filling. Asphyxiation.

You would know. You’ve done it all before.

Which is why, when you leave your home for the X-Mansion, you bring a couple... precautionary measures with you.

 

* * *

 

You hide your stolen bottles of mutation repression serum under your bed, along with your needles and sterilization equipment.

Fortunately, time and practice have taught you how to manage your doses so that you only shave off the top end of your abilities. Now that you’re surrounded by other mutants --especially since you’re going to be actively training with your mutation--you can’t afford to have any suspicious lapses in your powers.

You know you can’t afford to have any bad episodes while you’re here. Aside from the fact that Scott would probably give you kitchen duty for three months straight, you  _know_  beyond a shadow of a doubt that they won’t let you stay if you end up killing one of the residents --accident or not.

So, all you need to do is stay on top of everything and keep from having a serious episode.

Easier said than done.

 

* * *

 

For a few weeks, everything’s good. Just being away from your old home --being able to leave your room whenever you pleased, go outside when you wanted, enjoy the company of other people without being lectured on not using your abilities--did you a world of good.

But, eventually, your old fears and distant memories that you’d tried so hard to bury came creeping back.

You almost didn’t notice that your control was slipping at first, the signs were so minute --a breeze that floated down the hall when no windows were open. An exhale that made all the curtains in the room flutter. 

You didn’t notice the stress, either. A slight tension in your shoulders that was so easy to dismiss as fatigue from training every day.

The first episode hits you about three weeks after the signs start showing up.

The memories start pouring back in --running through the woods, trying to hide in rotted out logs, men running after you with rifles in their hands--one night while you’re sitting up in bed. You’re used to this by now, used to the near constant state of self-hatred and panic, so you simply put in your earbuds, pull up a playlist Wade had made for you to ‘catch you up’ on ‘all the great hits’ you’d missed, and crank up the volume until you can’t feel anything other than the pounding beat in your ears.

It works for all of five minutes before the thoughts become more vicious, angry at being ignored. Painful, all too clear memories flash through your mind, pound at the inside of your skull, drill the word across the delicate flesh of your brain.

_Murderer. Murderer. Murderer._

 

* * *

 

The first time it had happened you were five, trapped in your Sunday school classroom with a group of teenage boys. The news of your mutation had just hit the local gossip line, and had spread to the entire town in less than forty-eight hours.

You can remember how you trembled as you stared up at the boys, frozen with fear as they laughed at you.

“ _She’s just a little freak_ ,” they had jeered. “ _And here I thought mutants were supposed to be powerful_.”

One of them had lunged towards you, grabbed at you. “ _Maybe she’s one of the invincible ones. I wonder if she’ll bounce when we drop her off the roof_.”

You had panicked and tried to push the boy away.

Instead of maybe tilting back a few inches, he had shot across the room and into the cupboards, head first. There had been a sickening crunch as he made contact, and he had crumpled to the ground, unmoving.

“ _Hey, man, are you alright_?”

“ _Oh, god, I think she broke his neck_!”

“ _Oh shit, she killed him_!”

They’d bolted out of the room to go find an adult, leaving you there to stare at the body.

 

* * *

 

Your eyes snap open. You can feel it, feel it welling up inside you, stiffening your limbs and making your chest ache.

You’re about to go, and --judging by the way your shoulders feel like they’re about to snap--you’re going to take the entire mansion with you.

You rip your earbuds off and dive off your bed. You scrabble around underneath it until your fingers wrap around their prize --a glass bottle of the repression serum and the strap of the bag that holds your equipment.

You yank both items out from underneath the bed, painfully away of the way the windows shake in their settings and how the door groans with every breath you take. You pull a dose into a syringe, tie an elastic strap around your arm, and start looking for a vein.

_There_.

You quickly swab down the area with some rubbing alcohol, take a deep breath, and stick your arm.

_One._

_Two._

_Three._

_Four._

_Five._

_Six._

You slump back against the frame of your bed as you finally feel the serum kick in, finally feel the mild disconnection from your powers that you’d been waiting for. You’ve learned from experience that if you make it to ten without feeling anything to clear the building you were in; sometimes you’d make it halfway through an episode before you got any relief, any semblance of control over yourself.

The serum doesn’t take care of the thoughts --they’re still there, rattling inside your head like a batch of particularly vicious marbles--but you’ll take dealing with bad memories if it means you won’t run the risk of killing your newfound friends.

You sterilize the syringe and carefully hide your equipment and the bottle under your bed again before slipping downstairs to watch some TV.

It’s four in the morning before you finally drop from exhaustion.

 

* * *

 

You’ve learned from experience that being idle is your biggest enemy. Staying busy, staying ahead of your vindictive mind, is the best way to keep from having episodes. You have a limited supply of the serum, and you can’t afford to run out.

Cue your first dose of relief --Wade Wilson.

Wade Wilson, to put it mildly, was... odd. Extremely odd. When he wasn’t wearing his suit, he dressed like a fashion disaster --he wore  _Crocs_ , even you knew those were abominations. He took all his mission notes with crayons. He had a hit list binder that he’d decorated with glitter stickers shaped like unicorns and penises.

He’d also sicced onto you the moment you walked through the door at Xavier’s. It was like he had a sixth sense for noticing when someone needed extra attention or care.

Granted, his form of care came in the form of toaster strudels and legally dubious actions, but he noticed nonetheless.

 

* * *

 

One night, while you’re walking the grounds in an attempt to blow off some nervous energy, you stumble across him hoisting a boombox directly outside of Scott Summers’s window.

You don’t like Scott Summers. He walked like he had a permanent wedgie and smiled like an actor for a toothpaste commercial.

“Oh! Aang!” Wade waves you over with excited, jerky motions. “C’mere! I could use your help!”

You frown at him --both at what he was doing and the hideous rainbow cat pajama shorts he was wearing--and amble over to where he’s standing. “What’s up?”

“Two things: can you hold this rope while lifting me up to the boombox? I can’t reach it from down here --obviously--but I don’t want to clue Captain No-Can-Peek that I’m about to fuck with him.”

You eye the distance between the ground and Scott’s window. “Yeah.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Wade hands you the rope. “Alright, should I clench up?”

“Probably.” You extend your free hand towards him and create an air current to lift Wade off the ground. “Try to hold still. If you wiggle too much, I’ll drop you.”

“Gotcha.”

Slowly, carefully, you lift Wade up, inching him up the side of the house until he’s within reach of the boombox.

“Alright,” he hisses down at you. “I’m gonna crank this baby, and then you gotta drop me as fast as you can without breaking my legs before Sauron catches us. Comprende?”

“Be quick, don’t break your legs, don’t get our asses roasted. Yeah, I got it.”

Wade snickers, then hits play and cranks the boombox as loud as it will go.

The “dulcet” strains of the Nyan Cat song shatter the peaceful nighttime silence.

Wade jams the boombox onto Scott’s windowsill as the lights in the room --and several accompanying rooms--flick on. “Okay, get me down! Before my ass is grass!”

You drop him as fast as you dare, and the two of you take off into the night, giggling and cackling all the way as Scott’s irate screams pierce the air.

 

* * *

 

From that point on, Wade is your constant buddy and best friend. The two of you are rarely found without each other, and you get into more trouble than anyone thought imaginable. You take your punishments in stride --often dished out by the regular butt of your practical jokes, Mr. Scott Summers himself--and simply view the consequences as incentive to top yourselves the next time.

Your bond goes further than practical jokes, though. He names you as the new member of the X-Force, integrates you into the team, helps you bond with the other members, catches you up on everything you’d missed in all your years spent isolated in your room. He hangs out with you at night when neither of you can sleep and introduces you to trash TV show after trash TV show, providing commentary that was often funnier than what was happening on screen.

He makes you feel valued, like you’re part of a family.

He makes you feel like you’ve finally found a home.

 

* * *

 

Your new set of friends are a much needed lifeline. They keep you out of your room, keep you from being alone with your thoughts all day. They’re so effective --for lack of a better term--that it’s almost three months before you have your second episode at Xavier’s.

You’re in the midst of a nightmare, trapped in the sleep-distorted memories of the second time you killed someone.

 

* * *

 

It had been an accident, genuinely. You had been seven; killing people was the last thing on your mind. You hadn’t even felt scared or threatened.

You’d been playing with your best friend --your only best friend, the only person who had dared to come within five feet of you after the incident with the teenage boys when you were five--when it had happened.

You’d been playing tag with them when you tripped. Your hands had flailed as you tumbled to the ground.

Seconds later, the thud of their lifeless body hitting the ground followed.

You hadn’t found out until later that you’d accidentally “blown up” their lungs via over-inflation when you’d flailed your hands whilst falling.

“ _You freak_!” Your father’s hand had cracked across your face without mercy. “ _Have you forgotten your commandments? Thou shalt not kill_!”

“ _I didn’t mean to, Daddy_!” you’d screamed. “ _I didn’t mean to_!”

 

* * *

 

You lurch out of the nightmare in a cold sweat, shaking and already well on your way to an episode.

You barely manage to flick your bedside lamp on before you tumble out of bed with a thud, panicking as you thrust your hand blindly under the bed, searching for the serum and your bag.

In your adrenaline and anxiety fueled state, it takes you one, two, three tries before you can hit a vein. You inject yourself without hesitation, then curl into a ball and press your face into the carpet. You can hear the wind howl outside, undoubtedly aggravated by your current state. “Please, please,  _please_ ,” you whimper into the carpet, begging the unseen force that seems to take perverse joy in fucking up your life to take mercy on you, just this once.

_One._

_Two._

_Three._

_Four._

_Five._

_Six._

_Seven._

_Eight._

You let out a silent sob as you feel your connection to your mutation dim. Relief pours through you, and you roll onto your back as tears trickle down your cheeks. Outside, the wind dies down, and you focus on catching your breath and calming yourself down.

A heavy, clanging knock on the door has you on your feet in seconds.

“Y/N?” Colossus’s heavy, worried voice emanates from the other side of your door. “Are you alright?”

_Shit. Shit, shit, shit_. “Just a minute,” you manage as you try to silently tuck your tools and bottle out of sight whilst making yourself presentable. Once you’re decently certain that you don’t look halfway crazed you walk over to the door, opening it just enough to see into the hall.

Colossus peers down at you, concern evident on his face. “I heard some... odd noises coming from your room.”

You nod. “I was having a nightmare and fell out of my bed. Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Are you alright? Did you hit your head?”

You shake your head quickly to avoid an onslaught of worried, motherly interrogation. “No, I fell on my side. My head’s fine.”

He smiles sympathetically at you. “I am sorry you had nightmare. Can I get you anything?”

You shake your head again. “No, I’m fine, thank you. I’m just going to go back to bed.”

He nods. “That is probably for the best. I will let you sleep.”

You thank him again, then close the door and slump against it, sliding to the floor.  _Too close. Way too close._  You hug your knees to your chest and try to steady your breathing.

There was no way in  _hell_  you’d be falling asleep anytime soon.

 

* * *

 

After the nightmare and near miss with both the episode and Colossus, it’s painfully apparent to you that you aren’t staying ahead of your mind well enough. There’s still too much time during the day for you to get lost in an entire library of bad memories; you still have too much energy when you go to bed for the night.

You throw yourself into your training under the guise of wanting to be more than the team’s ‘emotional support.’ You earn nothing but praise from your friends for your efforts --especially Colossus, who seems like he’s about to burst from pride at any given moment at your newfound drive and diligence.

For a while, a few weeks, it works. You throw yourself into your training with everything you have, and you manage to wear yourself out so much that you don’t even dream when you collapse into bed at night.

Then, it doesn’t work. Your endurance and strength go up. Instead of being wipe-out tired, you find that you have more energy than before.

Granted, you feel better physically, which helps. Plus, you can’t deny that you look a lot better since you’ve started working out in earnest.

Unfortunately, Colossus won’t let you work out all day long. He’s right, you’d hurt yourself, but that still leaves you with several hours to fill --double that if Wade’s on a job.

In light of not being able to exercise yourself into a stupor, you sniff around, take a few tests, and land yourself a position as a grading assistant for the teachers at the mansion.

It’s a perfect fit. There are countless teachers that are more than happy to hand off stacks of essays for you to review and grade, meaning that you always --always--have something to do.

Even more perfect is the fact that you end up helping Colossus a lot. He teaches both art and Russian, and he’s highly dedicated to his students; as with everything else he does, he always goes above and beyond to make sure that things run smoothly, meaning that if he isn’t working with the X-Force or teaching, he’s developing curriculum or figuring out how to best help his struggling students.

You love him for it; you love his massive, sweet heart.

More often than not, you spend your afternoons and weekends grading papers and writing assignments while he makes lesson plans and grades his students’ assignments.

It’s nice. Wonderful. Beyond wonderful. A dose of endorphins and a steady stream of quiet, one on one company that you hadn’t realized you’d been craving so badly.

The stress doesn’t dissipate; honestly, you weren’t expecting it to. It’s a constant pressure on your chest, your shoulders, your neck, your back. It’s a constant, quiet shrieking that never quite leaves your mind.

But, for a while --almost seven months, a new record for you--you can ignore it. Let it be.

It’s something, but not what many would call the ‘wise choice.’

 

* * *

 

You pressed into the darkest corner of your closet, clenching your teeth as you try to wide out the waves of rage and screaming that you can feel crashing over you. Your clothes are swaying ominously on their hangers, a sign that you’re losing control. Badly.

You bite the bullet and unscrew the bottle lid with shaking hands. You’re not going to screw things up now. You have a home. A family. You’re loved. You can’t --won’t--lose any of that because you failed to take the proper precaution.

You try to shove down the memories that are rapidly replacing reality as you fill the syringe. From there, it’s the same damn routine.

Tie off elastic strap.

Find a vein.

Inject.

Count down.

You inhale deeply as you watch the dull, yellow tinted serum flow into your arm.

_One._

Your hair whips around your face as a strong draft dances around your closet.

_Two_.

You close your eyes and try to draw more air into your burning lungs.

_Three._

It’s not enough.

_Four._

It’s never enough.

_Five._

You can hear the voices taunting you, raging at you, declaring their hatred of you.

_Six_.

You suppose it’s fitting.

_Seven._

You hate yourself, too.

_Eight_.

The roof groans ominously as the wind outside goes from a ‘steady breeze’ to ‘nearing gale forces.’

_Nine_.

You dig your fingernails into your arms and pray, piercing the skin and drawing blood. You beg the forces of the universe to let this pass, to take mercy on you, to not take away the safety you’d come to know and love over the past year.

_Ten_.

You eyes snap open in a panic when the slow detachment from your mutation doesn’t come. You sprint out of your closet and throw open the window, launching yourself out and flying towards the forest behind the mansion without hesitation.

You crash into the forest floor, skinning your knees until they’re barely recognizable as such. You gasp, clutching at your chest as the memories replace the reality around you, until they’re all you can see.

 

* * *

 

Once you’d gotten past the age of ten, you started your attempts at running away. You were desperate to escape, desperate to go someplace where no one would recognize you, where you could build a new life.

You’d managed to go for six years without killing, until the age of thirteen.

They’d hunted you, tracked you through the woods that surrounded your town. Men had charged after you, carrying guns and flashlights while shouting things like “ _Find her_!” and “ _Shoot her if you have to! She’s a danger to us all_!”

You were younger, then. You still made mistakes, miscalculated in your navigation, left enough of a trail to be followed by.

In the end, they’d surrounded you. Thirteen men, encircling you, pointing guns of all kinds at a  _child_.

You’d panicked --and blacked out. When you had come to, they were all laying on the ground around you, dead.

The town coroner had declared the cause of their deaths to be asphyxiation.

 

* * *

 

Your fingers dig into the ground as your guilt over your actions bear down on you. You open your mouth, trying to find enough air to breathe --and let out a scream.

The shock wave that you release rips through several trees, reducing them to mere splinters. Others are ripped out of the ground and tossed like rag dolls by rogue air currents. A cyclone of debris and dust forms around you, shielding you from the outside world via sheer force.

You scream again, tilting your head back and releasing the anguished cry to the stars. “Please! Just let me die! I’m tired of hurting everyone around me! I don’t want to be a killer!”

The stars merely shine back at you, feeling neither sympathy or concern for your plight.

Eventually, the serum kicks in. You collapse into a shivering ball on the ground, gasping as the sense of control returns.

It takes a while --ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour--before you can drag yourself off the ground and out of the crater you’ve made. Episodes always take a lot out of you, and this one is no exception. You brush off your face and arms with numb fingers, comb the worst of the detritus out of your hair, and limp back towards the house.

You hope --you pray--that everything in the house will be dark, that everyone will still be asleep --and for the second time that night, the nonexistent gods of the universe smite you.

Piotr is exiting the back door in defense mode, flashlight in hand. He catches sight of you stumbling across the lawn and breaks into a run. “ _Myshka_!”

You collapse against him and let him sweep you into his arms.

“What happened? Why are you bleeding?”

“I fell,” you lie. “I was out for a walk and I lost my footing, fell down one of the hills in the woods.”

“Why did you not call me?”

“I left my phone in my room. I just wanted some quiet, you know?”

As your shitty luck would have it, Nathan’s also up and waiting in the kitchen. “Jesus, kid, what did you do to yourself?”

“She fell while walking,” Piotr supplies as he sets you --gently, carefully--on one of the chairs.

You try to stand. “I’ll be fine. I can clean myself up.”

“ _Nyet_.” Piotr’s voice is unusually stern. “You are going nowhere until we know how badly you were hurt.”

“I’m with Colossus on this one,” Nathan agrees. “I doubt you could even make it upstairs on your own.”

Piotr winces as he examines your shredded knees. “These need to be properly irrigated before they are bandaged.”

Nathan sucks in a breath. “The locker room would probably be the best place to do that. We’ll flood the kitchen before we get those cleaned up.”

You’re about to suggest using the tub in your bathroom when you remember that you didn’t get a chance to stash your serum and needles before you had to book it. “Locker room’s fine. Scott’ll murder me if I flood the kitchen.”

“He will do no such thing,” Piotr says as he lifts you into his arms again. “I won’t let him.”

Once in the locker room, Nathan helps you roll up the pant legs on your pajama bottoms while Piotr goes in search of a first aid kit. “Honesty time, kid. What were you really doing out there? You and I both know you weren’t walking.”

There are times where you really hate Nathan for being a telepath. Now’s one of them. “I was getting some air.” Truth. “I was flying.” Also truth. “I bit the landing and fell.” Still, technically, a truth.

“And you didn’t tell any of this to Colossus because?”

“You know how he gets when I have mishaps with my powers. I love him, but I can only take so much mother hen-ning before I feel like I’m gonna suffocate,” you say, hoping he’ll take that as a good enough excuse and leave it the fuck alone.

He does, but his expression tells you that he isn’t too convinced by your storytelling and excuses.

Piotr reappears, just in the nick of time to have  _not_ heard any of your conversation with Cable, carrying a hefty first aid kit with him. “How should we do this?”

“You keep her balanced. I’ll clean the wounds,” Nathan grunts as he turns on the water in one of the shower stalls.

It hurts --of course it does--and you have to grit your teeth to keep from crying out. Piotr’s arms are a solid vice around your waist, and you grip his hard, metal forearms as Nathan flushes the dirt and flecks of wood out of your scrapes.

Once your knees are clean, Piotr carries you over to one of the benches by the lockers and starts sorting through the first aid kit.

You watch, bleary and almost numb, as Nathan starts cleaning the dirt off your legs and feet with a wet washcloth. “I can do that. You don’t have to.”

He shakes his head. “We’ve got you here, kid. May as well get everything done.”

“Where did you fall?” Piotr asks as he start apply thick daubs of antibiotic ointment to your knees.

“I don’t remember.” Technically, again, true. You were so focused on trying to get out of range of the house that you hadn’t taken note of where you had landed. You clear your throat and try to change the subject before you end up contradicting yourself. “Why were you two up? Did Wade sneak into Scott’s room again?” 

“We heard screaming outside,” Nathan grunts as he starts wiping smears of dirt and dried blood off your arms. “We got up to investigate.”

You stomach sinks. If you had injected the serum any later, you would’ve been caught, no doubt about it.

As you watch two of the dearest people in your life take care of you, you promise yourself --and them, not that they would know it--something.

You’re never going to have another episode again.

Even if it kills you.

 

* * *

 

Before you have enough time to contemplate exactly  _how_  you’re going to make good on your promise, relief comes in the form of none other than Mr. Piotr Rasputin.

Specifically in the form of him confessing his love to you and asking you to be his girlfriend.

Naturally, you accept. No one in their right mind wouldn’t.

Piotr becomes a stabilizing force in your life. He comforts you through your nightmares and moments of stress, helps you keep yourself on some semblance of a schedule, and encourages you to open up to the Professor and the psychological healers on staff at the Mansion about your experiences and past traumas. When he’s not doing that, he’s pouring out buckets of affection and love on you, a veritable wellspring of sweetness.

You’re not entirely sure what  _he_  gets out of the relationship, but you’ll be fucked if you’re going to question it.

It doesn’t fix your stress; you weren’t expecting it to you. But, combined with having things to do, friends to hang out with, and being physically healthy, your relationship with Piotr becomes the final balm you didn’t know you needed.

You feel good. You feel like you’re finally healing.

Everything starts going well for a change. You keep a mental count of the days since your episode in the forest behind Xavier’s. A month passes, then two, then three...

You can barely believe it as you close in on a full year since your last episode. It seems too good to be true.

Then Harmony happens.

 

* * *

 

You’re relieved that you rescued Piotr from Harmony. Even though it’s dredged up a lot of bad memories and self-loathing that you thought you’d gotten rid of, you’d do it again. No hesitation.

Unfortunately, you still have to deal with the aftermath of enduring your rag-tag mission to rescue your boyfriend.

It all starts again. Nightmares, memories that seem to visibly replace reality, the episodes. It’s so bad that you start having full blown episodes once a week, if not more often. You end up using daily doses just to keep yourself in check.

You realize, about seven weeks in, that you’re starting to run out of serum. Even though you’ve been using small doses, only enough to prevent you from destroying buildings or killing people, you’re still burning through your stash at an exorbitant rate.

You need to find more bottles of the serum --before you have another episode.

Fortunately, you know just where to look.

 

* * *

 

Dry, dead sticks and underbrush crunch under your boots as you stalk towards your target. The impenetrable darkness makes you an intangible shadow, completely undetected as you close in on the small concrete building.

You’ll have to be fast. Efficient. Untraceable. There won’t be any X-Jet-machina to save you this time.

You reach out your hand and jerk it, palm side down, towards the ground.

The men guarding the Harmony compound collapse to the ground in twitching piles as you cause their lungs to over fill and explode.

You march to the door and launch it into the compound with a focused blast of air. Before the men inside have time to react, you flick your wrist and send them careening into the walls. Their impacts are highlighted by sickening cracks and crunches as they slam into the walls, followed quickly by dull thuds as they fall to the floor, lifeless.

You shove the couch off the rug and rip the decorative square of fabric off the floor.

 

* * *

 

The murder room is exactly as you remember it from rescuing Piotr --cold, clinical, and creepy as fuck.

You adjust the gloves you’d worn --you’re not dumb enough to risk leave fingerprints--before you start rifling through the cabinets.

There are hundreds of bottles of the serum, all at differing intensities, and you have to stop and read the labels until you find what you’re looking for. You drop three large bottles that almost run the whole length of your forearm into your backpack and leave the way you came, stepping over body after body as you do.

You feel nothing for the deaths you’ve left in your wake. If it keeps your friends --you family--safe, it’s worth it.

It has to be.

 

* * *

 

It seems to be a recurring theme in your life --you struggle, but with enough work and effort things go pretty well.

But, holy fuck, when they go wrong they go wrong  _hard_.

You’re out running through the woods --as exercise this time, instead of trying to outrun an episode--when the Professor ‘calls’ you.

_Ms. Y/L/N, would you mind joining the X-Force team and myself in my office? It’s urgent_.

You alter your course and dash back to the house, mind racing at what the possibilities could be. It’s most likely a new mission, but you shudder to think at what horrible thing could’ve happened that prompted the Professor to call you, instead of Wade or Nathan or--

You jump over the stairs and job down the hall until you reach Professor Xavier’s office. You throw open the door without a moment’s hesitation. “What’s the emergen--”

Your teammates --your family--are all positioned around Xavier’s desk. Ellie, Yukio, and Russell are standing on the side opposite of the windows, whispering to each other in hushed, urgent tones. Neena is sitting next to Piotr, who has his head in his hands. Nathan is standing behind the desk, next to the Professor, and Wade is sitting on the front of the desk, looking pissed beyond all compare.

And, on the center of the desk, sit your bottles of repression serum and your bag of equipment.

Your blood runs cold. “What the fuck is this?”

“Guess what I found when I searched your room for my hooker heels --which I still can’t find, by the way, and I want them back!” Wade hefts the bag before slamming it back down on the top of the desk. “The fuck is this? Why do you have fucking mutation magic eraser juice and a bunch of medically acceptable stabbing implements stashed under your bed?”

If this were any other situation, you’d laugh at his descriptors for the repression serum and the needles. Right now, all you can do is stare at him while panic makes your stomach churn. “How fucking  _dare you_ \--”

“What, like I’m going to let the fact that my best friend’s doping up stay a secret? I think the fuck not!”

“It’s not a fucking opioid, you shitstick!”

“You’re right about that, Y/N,” the Professor interjects. “There are no inherently addictive ingredients in the repression serum. That still begs the question of why you’re injecting yourself.”

You clench your teeth together as your hands curl into fists. “That’s my business.”

“No,” Wade growls, lurching off the desk. “You’re a part of the X-Force. Anything that affects your powers is the  _team’s_  business. We have a right to know if you’re going into a fight impaired.”

“It’s not a narcotic! It’s not alcohol! I’m not out of my mind!”

“But you are reducing your abilities! Impairment doesn’t just mean that you ingest some ‘make-brain-fucking-happy-juice’ and go to town!”

“For fuck’s sake, I’m only shaving off the stuff I don’t need! I’ve been doing this for years, Wade; I know what I’m fucking doing, asshole.”

Wade’s nonexistent brows furrow as he frowns. “Years? How have you been doing this for years? And what powers would you need to lose --atomic farts?”

You roll your eyes. “How many fucking times do I have to explain that my powers control  _air_ , not  _wind_?”

“Look, you make a breeze, you’ve got wind powers; I don’t write the rules, and I don’t enforce them either, but that’s how it works!”

“Air.” You cross the distance between the two of you and jab your finger against his chest. “You know, the thing you need to breathe? Asphyxiation. Destroying organs. Slamming people around so hard they snap their necks. Fucking  _air_ , Wade. Not wind.”

“I fail to see the downside. We could really use those skills on our trafficker missions.”

“Do you think I like killing people?” Your shriek echoes off the walls. “Better question --do you think I have any choice over who I kill?”

“So, you use that stuff,” Neena spoke for the first time since you entered the room as she nodded at the bottles. “To keep yourself from losing control.”

“I fight just find without the top reach of my powers. And I’ve been managing myself just fine up to this point, and I’ll keep managing myself just fine.”

“Right, because ripping up trees and blowing a boulder sized crater into the ground is the definition of ‘managing’ things.” Nathan’s gaze is unyielding as he stares at you. “One year ago. You ripped your knees to shit. You had an episode, didn’t you?”

“I...  _occasionally_  flub my doses.  _If_  that happens, I get clear of the house until the serum kicks in,” You admit as your hands start shaking.

“Well, you said that was a year ago,” Yukio pipes up, a wavering smile tugging at her lips. “If there’s been nothing since then, maybe things are better... right?”

“I would say there was about a year long stint where Ms. Y/L/N managed to avoid having a noteworthy episode --but that period was abruptly shattered when you all rescued Mr. Rasputin from the compound in Harmony.”

You swivel to glare at the Professor, furious at him for outing you. “And I haven’t destroyed anything since then, have I?”

“No, which is suspect is due to small, daily injections of the serum that you’ve been using to keep yourself controlled.” The Professor lifted one of the bottles off the desk, studying it carefully. “Given how strong you are --and how high your stress levels are--I’d imagine it takes a decent-sized injection to get the results you need.” He looks up at you. “How do you keep yourself stocked? We don’t have any repression serum at the mansion for you to use.”

Ellie puts it together before you can think of a convincing lie. “You went back to Harmony. You took serum from the compound.”

“Ellie--”

“Are you fucking stupid?” she screams. “Why would you do something like that? Do you have any idea how fucking dangerous that was?”

“I will do whatever it takes to keep all of you safe,” You spit out through gritted teeth. “Including keeping you safe from me.”

Ellie flashes you a defiant sneer. “And how many people did you have to kill to get your hands on that shit?”

“I’ll kill whoever I have to, however many people it takes, to make sure I don’t hurt any of you.”

“No.”

You look at Piotr for the first time --you’d been avoiding it, knowing full well that as soon as you did you resolve would evaporate.

He’s in his human form, face in his hands. He lift his head to look up at you--

He’s crying. His blue eyes are red and puffy, and fat, glistening tears are trickling down his cheeks. He draws in a shaky breath and shakes his head. “I-- no,  _myshka_. Just... no. This is not... you cannot...”

You cross you arms over the chest. “Say it. This an abuse of my powers and highly irresponsible. Say it!”

His eyes close, tears slipping out between his dark lashes. When he opens them again, the look he gives you is so pained that you feel it in your chest. “This is not what you deserve. You should not be going through this alone. You should not feel that you have to resort to such methods to be safe, to keep us safe. There are better ways.”

You swallow hard. You can feel your resolve fading away with every word that tumbles out of his mouth, every tear that stains his cheek. You stare at his face, force yourself to think about what that face would look like after you accidentally asphyxiated him, or slammed him against a wall too hard, or--

It’s enough. You manage to steel yourself in the face of his tenderness and pain. “This is how things have to be.”

“Not necessarily,” Professor Xavier argues. “Your episodes are made worse by the trauma you suffered as a child. I would imagine that if you worked through those issues with a psychological healer and myself, you’d have full control over your powers.”

No. Absolutely not. Reliving all those memories, all the things you’ve done, is painful enough during the episodes. You’re not going to subject yourself to it willingly.

You tighten you jaw and stare down the Professor. “This is what works. I’m going to keep doing what works.”

Nathan uses his telekinesis to whisk the bottles and syringes out of your reach before you can grab them. “No.”

“Those belong to me!” You snarl.

“Not anymore. You’re not injecting yourself with God knows what,” he growls back.

“ _Myshka_ , please.” Piotr’s voice is broken and hoarse. “Let us help you.”

You won’t.

You can’t.

You’ll kill them if you don’t have the serum, and there’s no way you can live with that.

There’s no way they’ll love you once they know about your past, either.

You sprint out of the room, desperate to get as far away as possible. You skid into your room and slam the door shut behind you, locking yourself in.

You can hear their footsteps pounding against the floor, and then Wade’s whaling on your door with his fists.

“Y/N, open this door, or so help me I will body slam through it! I have a healing factor and the tenacity of a rabid badger! This is not clown around time!”

“Just get a screwdriver, dipshit,” Nathan grumbles. “We’ll take the hinges off.”

“No.” Piotr’s voice. He’s in defense mode --you can tell by the weight of his steps and the way his voice sounds. “If she wants space, she gets space.”

“Uh, I think the fuck not, Tin Can,” Wade shoots back. “My best friend’s in there, and I’ll be fucked if I’m going to let her just isolate herself.”

“Enough!” Piotr actually sounds mad, which is rarity in and of itself. “We will give her time.”

“But--”

“I am not asking, Wade. I am telling. We give her  _time_.”

You can only imagine the look that Colossus is shooting Wade right now. It must be pretty incredible, because the rest of the group actually shuffles off in different directions.

“If this goes South, he’ll have your head on a platter, and I’ll help put it there,” Nathan growls at Piotr before stalking off.

You can hear him sigh, and there’s a gentle thud as he places his hand against your door.

“ _Myshka_?”

You close your eyes and bite down on your lower lip to keep from crying.

“You don’t have to say anything... but I want you to know that it’s going to be okay. We’ll get through this. All of us. As a family.”

You hug your knees to your chest as hot, salty tears sting your eyes.

“We’ll be right here for you.” His voice changes --he’s shifted in to his human mode. “I’ll be here for you. You don’t have to be alone.”

You dig your fingernails into your arms until the skin breaks, using the pain to hold back sobs.

“I love you,  _myshka_. Come find me when you want to talk. I’ll have all the time in the world for you.”

You grit your teeth as his footsteps retreat down the hall. You let out a ragged gasp and tip your head back to stare at the ceiling.

Being alone was never the problem.

It never has been.

 

* * *

 

It’s official: things have reached worst-case scenario.

You’ve been in your room for seven straight hours. Various members of the X-Force have stopped by to coax you out of your room, but to no avail.

You have to figure out a plan. You have to figure out what you’re going to do now that you don’t have the repression serum.

You could always steal it back --but that would require knowing where it’s hidden. Besides, you’re pretty sure Professor Xavier would tip Piotr off before you could get anywhere close to it.

You could always steal more from Harmony. Unfortunately, you’re not fast enough to outpace the X-Jet, you don’t want to risk another incident with the resident bigots, and you don’t know where you’ll hide the serum this time around.

Piotr knocks on the door in the fourth hour of your planning session, announcing that he has dinner ready for you. When you don’t answer, he tells you that he’ll leave it outside for you and walks away.

You wait until you’re sure he’s gone, then open the door enough to grab the plate and carry it into your room. You lock the door once it’s closed again, and go back to mulling things over.

You hit the sixth hour when you realize that the serum isn’t a viable option anymore --you don’t have any needles or syringes to inject it with. You don’t even know where you’d find those; the ones in your kit had been your parents’.

You briefly contemplate stealing some from the medical bay, but throw the idea out before it gains too much steam. There’s no way you’ll pull it off, not without being busted by the Professor. Or Nathan. Or Jean.

No, if you’re going to get these episodes under control, you’re going to have to do it without the serum. And, if that’s what it’s come to, you’re going to need an expert. Someone who can protect themselves from your specific power set. Someone who lives someplace isolated, where you won’t have to worry about hurting anyone or destroying anything important.

You don’t have to think about it --and you don’t think about, to keep yourself under the telepathic radar.

You throw a week’s worth of clothes into your backpack, along with some basic toiletries. You jam in your wallet, add a few protein bars and a water bottle, and zip up the bag.

As you zip up your flight jacket, it occurs to you that you should at least leave a note for Piotr.

You take a note card from the pack on your desk and write a quick note for your boyfriend.

_I have to go_.

Well, that sounds great.

_I’m sorry_.

That sounds even better. You grimace, trying to think of something that’ll make things go over easier.

_I love you_.

Right, which is why you’re leaving with no warning, no good-bye, and no indication as to where you’ll be going.

_I’ll be back when I know it’s safe_.

You scrawl his name on the top of the note, then set it down before you overthink things too much. You grab your flight goggles, adjust them over your eyes, and open the window by your bed.

The night air gently buffets your cheeks, calling to you. It’s a clear night, perfect for navigating and flying.

You take a deep breath and fly out the window.  _I’ll come back. I promise_.

 

* * *

 

The sun is just starting to rise when your destination comes into view.

You’ve been flying all night, pushing yourself as fast as you dare to avoid being caught by your team. Your eyes are burning from exhaustion, and your face has long since gone numb from the draft pressing against you as you fly.

You’re closing in on a small, white farm house nestled inside a perimeter of oak trees. It’s the only sign of human life for miles --the perfect place for you to have a meltdown that clocks wind speeds equivalent to an F-5 tornado.

As you come in for a landing, you can see a man dressed in a red flannel shirt and worn out jeans standing on the porch. He waves at you -then chuckles when you wipe out in the side yard. “Still haven’t gotten landings down, I see.”

You groan as you brush yourself off and push yourself to your feet. “I need a place to stay.”

“I know. Charles told me you were coming.” He helps you brush off your sleeves and pulls you into a one-armed hug. “You’re always welcome here, punk. For as long as you need.”

You wrap your arms around his waist. “Thanks, uncle.”

He pats your back, then clasps your shoulder and guides you into the farmhouse. “Come on. Let’s get the guest room set up.”

 

* * *

 

You’re woken up later with a cup of ice cold water to the face. You sputter and crack one eye open to peer owlishly at your attacker. “What the fuck?”

Your uncle smiles cheerily at you and whisks the curtains open, letting sunlight pour into the room. “Morning!”

You look at the clock and groan. “I’ve only been out for two hours!”

“Can’t waste the whole day. Come on.” He whisks the quilt off your bed. “We’ve got training to do.”

You mutter a list of death threats under your breath and trudge after him.

 

* * *

 

“Again.”

You’re dripping with sweat, borderline boneless from all the work he’s been having you do.

He started with basic warm ups --stretching, push ups, wind sprints, the whole nine yards.

Once he’d decided that you were sufficiently ‘warm’ --which coincided with you being halfway to an aneurysm--he had you practicing take offs and landings.

“Holy fucking shit,” he grumbles as you botch your tenth landing of the morning. “How has Xavier let you work like this for this long? How are your legs still in one piece?”

“I’m tough,” You mumble as you peel yourself off his destroyed lawn.

“Tough and stupid fucking lucky. I know you aren’t here under the best of reasons, but Xavier should’ve sent you long before now just so I could teach you own to not pop your spine out of the top of your fucking head.” He snaps his fingers and points at the house. “Go shower. Clearly, I have some teaching to do.”

You sigh and trudge off to the house.

 

* * *

 

You make it halfway through his lecture on aerodynamics and wind speed before you start falling asleep.

Your uncle clasps your shoulder and flashes you that cheery smile you’ve learned to start suspecting whenever it surfaces. “I think it’s time for a little movement; let’s get that blood pumping.”

You frown at him tiredly as he pulls you off the couch. “What, more landing practice?”

“Not quite.”

 

* * *

 

You wince as your drive the head of the ax through another log. “Really? Chopping wood? What’s the fucking point of this?”

“Builds character.”

You roll your eyes at his cheery grin and set up your next block of wood. “This feels... less like... character building... and more like... punishment.”

“Well, that’s why you’re here, aren’t you?” Your uncle’s gaze is suddenly uncomfortably piercing. “You feel like you need to be punished, so you came here.”

You go quiet for a moment, then split the next log. “I deserve to be punished.”

Your uncle sighs, then pulls a massive stump out of the pile and sits on it. “Well, while we’re here, you might as well tell me about your new friends.”

You smirk as you toss the remains of the log into your meager ‘chopped’ pile. “Let me tell you about Wade Wilson.”

 

* * *

 

You have an episode that very night.

You barely have the wherewithal to make it out the back door before you’re toppling to the ground, screaming as a stream of horrific memories overtake you.

You were a regular runner. There wasn’t any challenge your parents could set before you, an obstacle they could place in your path, any restraint they could tie you down with that could stop you.

When you were sixteen, you managed to survive in the woods for ten days before they caught you.

You hadn’t made a mistake --other than over-exhausting yourself. You’d overslept, missed the cues that your hunters were closing in on you, and fallen into a stream in your panicked attempts to escape, smacking your head on a rock.

You can still hear the laughs in your ears, no matter how hard you make the wind blow to try and whip them away.

You can still feel water close over your mouth and nose from when they’d shoved your head under the current, no matter how hard dust swirls around you or how many breaths you take.

You’re not sure how long you’re out there --maybe minutes, maybe hours--before the raging storm around you and inside you finally quiet. You collapse to your knees, panting raggedly.

Your uncle’s sitting a few feet away, sipping from a can of beer as he watches you.

Your stomach clenches as you think about what would’ve happened if he had been one of your friends instead, if he didn’t have the ability to control air like you.

The harrowing certainty of what could have been only seals in your decision for you. You have to be here. You can’t risk your friends’ lives --to say nothing of the lives of everyone else there--by going back. You’ll stay here, train your ass off, until you’re absolutely sure that you’re not a danger to anyone else.

It’s what has to be done.

Your uncle sighs, crumples the empty can in his fist, and scoops you off the ground. “C’mon, punk. Back to bed with you.”

 

* * *

 

“You need to create a cushion under your feet. Direct the currents upward to help slow you down.”

“I’m trying!”

Your uncle sighs as you wipe out --again--and yanks you off the ground by the collar of your jacket. “Okay. Arms out.” He yanks your arms out so they’re sticking straight out from your shoulders. “They’re your foils. Lean back, like you’re jumping back first onto a bed. You could hover down, but that takes time and leaves you vulnerable to your opponents for longer. Once your feet hit the ground, it’s like stepping off and escalator; there’s going to be a little momentum pushing you forward. Move with it. Once you get better at controlling air currents, you’ll be able to reduce the amount of momentum you land with.” He steps back and nods. “Again.”

You sigh, get a running start, and take off. You loop around the house a couple times before coming in for a landing.  _Arms out. Lean back. Be ready to move_.

It isn’t a pretty landing. You stumble, you flail your arms, and you almost trip over your own two feet at one point --but you don’t fall.

You turn to beam at your uncle, hands on your hips.

He chuckles and claps for you. “Look at that. We’ll have you back to Xavier’s in no time.”

Your smile fades, and you look away. “It could be better. I’ll try again.”

 

* * *

 

_Crack_!

The ax bores through the wood, making a satisfying split down the middle.

You toss the two pieces to the side, set another log on the chopping block, and lift the ax over your head again.

_Crack_!

In hindsight, you suppose you should’ve brought something to keep you occupied --a book, your sketch pad, something.

_Crack_!

You suppose, though, that being stuck with physical labor is somehow more fitting.

_Crack_!

This isn’t a leisure trip, after all.

_Crack_!

This is justice.

“Ahem.”

You look up when your uncle clears his throat.

He’s standing off to the side with a quart jar filled with water. “Break time. C’mon.”

You shake your head. “I’m fine.”

“You’ve been out here for two hours. You need to take a break.”

“You didn’t seem so concerned with a break when you were running my ass into the ground this morning.”

He jerks the ax out of your hand, slams the head into the chopping block, and shoves the jar into your hands. “Hydrate.”

You roll your eyes and sip at your water. “God, you’re just as bad as my boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?” Your uncle grins. “You didn’t tell me about a boyfriend yesterday.”

“Well, maybe I was trying to keep your nose-y ass out of my private life.”

“I am not nose-y.” He tugs at your arm, guiding you back to the house. “Come on. You can tell me all about him while I make dinner.”

 

* * *

 

“He’s Russian? Really?”

You nod. “Yupp. Immigrated to America to study under Professor Xavier and the team at the mansion.”

“I’d say he made a wise move, but I’m not sure we’re outpacing Russia by all that much right now. What’s he like?”

“A giant fucking marshmallow. Seriously, he’s the sweetest guy you’ll ever meet. He paints. He likes romantic movies. He cries when a dog dies during a film.”

“Anyone who doesn’t cry during a dog’s death is a fucking sociopath, take my word for it.”

You chuckle at that, but your humor quickly fades as you think of Piotr, sitting in his room, with only your pathetic note as a source of comfort in the wake of your disappearance. You let out a dark laugh. “You know, I say boyfriend, but I doubt I’ll have one when I make it back. He’s going to hate me for doing this.”

“I seriously doubt that. If he’s as big of a marshmallow as you say, he’ll forgive you.”

You want to believe that --because you can’t imagine your life without Piotr by your side--but you can’t quite latch on to the idea. You can’t fathom him not hating you when you finally pluck up the courage to head back to the X-Mansion -you can’t imagine any of the members of the X-Force not hating you for what you’ve done.

But, in fairness to them, you’d hate yourself too, for doing this.

You definitely deserve it.

 

* * *

 

“Santa Maria!” your uncle shouts as you plow through a wooden board and roll across the ground behind it. “What the hell was that?”

“You asked me to break through the board!” You snap, cranky from your aching shoulder. “So I did!”

“How the fuck has Charles been allowing you to throw yourself around with this little skill? I’m going to fucking murder him when I see him next!”

You grimace as you sit up. “I mean, I’m kind of on Team Half-Ass.”

“No shit.”

“Hey, we get our results! We’ve got the best rescue rate for kids and trafficking victims!”

Your uncle just shakes his head and points to the front porch stairs. “Watch and learn, kid. This is how you properly throw yourself through a board.”

 

* * *

 

You have another episode a couple of days later.

There aren’t any memories to accompany your terror this time --just angry voices that try to drown you in self-loathing.

You’re a murderer. Even if you could call the deaths you’d caused while growing up accidental --which you couldn’t look yourself in a mirror and do yet--you had killed people in Harmony.

Granted, Wade liked to argue that bigots weren’t really people --usually with Colossus, right after he had shot someone on a mission--but that particular Wade-ism wasn’t helping you too much at the moment.

You’re curled up on your side, laying on the ground, crying as you try to calm the raging winds that are plowing into the trees that wall off your uncle’s home from the outside world. “Please!” You scream into the night. “Just make it stop! Enough!”

The nonexistent gods of the universe smite you once again by way of doing nothing. The selfish bastards.

Eventually, the wind settles, but your mind doesn’t. You curl into a ball as your brain turns against you.

_Worthless_.

_Idiot_.

_Who could possibly love you_?

There’s the sound of footsteps shuffling through the grass, and your uncle sighs above you. “Come here often?”

You emit a thready, hysterical stream of giggles. “Yeah, every fucking night.”

He sits down next to you and nudges your shoulder until you roll onto your back. He points at the night sky. “Remember the first time I taught you how to navigate by the stars?”

“Duh. I made it here, didn’t I?”

“Refresh my memory. Give your aging kin some comfort.”

You snort. “You’re not  _that_  old.” Still you oblige him and start listing the constellations and prominent stars in the sky until you drift off into a dreamless sleep.

 

* * *

 

When you wake up, you’re in the bed in the guest bedroom, tucked under the quilt. It’s such a Piotr move that you get excited for a moment, thinking he had carried you to bed.

Then you remember that you left him back at Xavier’s without so much as a proper good-bye.

You press your face into your pillow and start to cry.

 

* * *

 

You make it a week and a half in before you dig the picture out of your wallet in a moment of desperation.

You use your usual tactics of staying ahead of your brain. You train with your uncle, take up odd repair jobs around the house, weed the garden he keeps towards the back of his property, work out, chop wood --anything to keep your brain busy, to keep your mind away from the soul-crushing home sickness you feel.

You miss the X-Force so much. You miss Wade’s antics, the way he treated you like his younger sister. You miss the teens --Ellie, Yukio, and Russell--and playing video games with them. You miss Neena, who was like the big sister you’d always wanted. You miss Nathan, how he acts as a foil for your and Wade with little more than an annoyed eye roll. Fuck, you even miss Dopinder and all his weirdness.

And you miss Piotr. God, you miss Piotr. You miss him so much it hurts. You miss his smile, his hugs, the way his voice rumbles when he calls you ‘ _myshka_.’

You have a picture of the group of you tucked away in your wallet --a souvenir from a borderline botched attempt at a ‘family Christmas photo shoot’ after surviving your first year together.

You’d managed to get one nice picture out of the bunch. Everyone’s smiling --even Nathan, though you wouldn’t be able to tell if you didn’t know what you were looking for.

You sniff, loud and inelegant, as you trace the tip of your finger over Piotr’s face. 

It had been a trick to get everyone in the picture, especially with his size factored in. Eventually, you had settled on having him kneel in the front -in his human form, to save on space--and having everyone else crowd around him. You had sat on his knee, Ellie and Yukio had stood to his left with their arms around each other, Neena and Russell stood to the right, and Wade and Cable stood in the back; Wade was trying to plant a kiss on Nathan’s cheek in the picture, and Nathan was shoving Wade’s face away with his techno-organic arm.

“Hey, kid. Why the water works?”

“Hit my head,” You mumble half-heartedly, knowing that your lie doesn’t even sound halfway convincing.

“Right.” The bed creaks as your uncle sits down next to you. “Is that your boyfriend?” He taps at Piotr, who’s grinning bashfully in the picture as you press a dramatic kiss against his cheek.

You nod. “That’s him.”

“He’s a looker.”

You giggle. “Yeah. I’m definitely the reacher.”

“Ah, don’t sell yourself short. Who are the rest of the people?”

You smile fondly as you gaze down at the ridiculous picture --somehow, all of you  _except_  Neena had managed to not look at the camera. “My family.”

_That you left. Without a word or warning._

Your smile drops and you tuck the picture back into your wallet. “Should we start the next round of training?”

Your uncle grimaces, but stands anyway. “Sure.”

 

* * *

 

Two weeks into your stay a massive thunderstorm hits, trapping you inside the house for the day.

You can barely sit in one place for more than five minutes. Without anything to do, you can’t stay ahead of your mind. There’s nothing for you to do inside the house --your uncle runs a tidy ship.

Eventually, he set his book down and watches you pace the footprint of the main floor. “Something you want to talk about?”

“No,” You grumble, sounding surly to your own ears.

“Uh-huh.” He raises his eyebrows, clearly unconvinced. “Is your mind eating you alive?”

“Like a hoarde of starved zombies.”

“Well, what’re you going to do about it?”

“I can’t  _do_  anything. I’m stuck in here until the storm passes, and there’s nothing to do in here that can keep my mind busy.”

“Sounds to me like you’re avoiding the problem.”

You level a flat, annoyed glare at him. “Pot, kettle.”

He shrugged, completely unfazed. “I’ll admit, I’m a champ at avoiding any and all issues. It’s why I live out here.  _My_  issues, however, come from working for a undisclosed government agency during my twenties and thirties. Your issues are something entirely different.”

You don’t miss the way his gaze flicks to the window as the wind picks up. You close your eyes, take a deep breath, and try to calm yourself. “Fine,” You admit. “My issues are different. When do we work on them?”

“We don’t.”

“What?” You squawk.

“I can’t help you with your episodes because your problem isn’t with your powers,” your uncle explains with the patience of a saint. “You’ve got damn near perfect control over your powers --aside from those God-awful lands that I’m gonna rail Charles for letting you do. No, your problems are with yourself and I’m not a shrink.”

“How are my problems with myself?”

“Why else would you say you deserve to be punished? Why would you call coming out here, where you’re clearly miserable, justice?” When you hang your head, he pats your shoulder. “Look, kiddo, you’re welcome here for as long as you feel like you need to stay. I’m not going to turn you out --goodness knows I like having you do my chores for me. But, if you want to get control over your episodes, it’s Charles you need to work with. Not me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that sooner?”

“Because you won’t be able to work with Charles until you’re ready to work with yourself, and that’s not a place I can take you to. You have to reach it on your own, and only you can decide when you’ve reached it.”

He walks out of the room, leaving you to stare at the worn grain of the wooden floor.

 

* * *

 

You make it halfway through the third week before you crack.

The homesickness is gutting. You miss the mansion, you miss the constant brew of chaos and chatter that came with being a part of the X-Force, and you miss Piotr.

God, you miss Piotr.

It’s three in the morning, and you’re sitting on the kitchen table, eating ice cream out of the carton with a serving spoon.

It’s better than having an episode, but the humiliating edge of your predicament isn’t lost on you.

You sniff and let out a little sob as you think of your friends, your family. You’d give anything just to  _talk_  to them right now, to hear their voices.

You doubt they’d listen to anything you have to say, though. You’ve been gone for three weeks. You’ve abandoned them.

They probably hate you by now.

“Oh boy.” Your uncle grimaces as he walks in on your pathetic pity party. “We’ve hit the ice cream point, I see. Jesus, why are you eating it with a fucking serving spoon?”

“It’s all I could find,” You mumble around a mouthful of Breyer’s ‘Classic Vanilla.’

Your uncle rifles through the kitchen drawers, producing a normal sized spoon. “Eat all the ice cream you want, but give me the serving spoon. You look like a fuckin’ tool.”

“Fuck you.” You trade spoons with him anyway.

He retrieves a bottle of beer from the fridge, pulls a chair away from the table, and sits down with a groan. “Okay, punk. Why are you in my kitchen at three in the fucking morning, eating ice cream like some high school protagonist that was just dumped by her boyfriend of two months?”

“I miss home,” You grumble as you shove more ice cream into your mouth.

“Then why are you still here? You can leave whenever you want.”

You shake your head, letting out a bitter laugh. “There’s no way I can go back. Not after what I did.”

“Which is...?”

“I killed people to get more serum,” You admit after a long pause. “I was so desperate to stay in control that I almost ran out.”

Your uncle scrubs his hand over his face. “Jesus --okay. I’m going to tell you something right now, and I want you to unclog your ears and actually listen to me. The serum is not supposed to be a long term fix.”

“I know that--”

“No. You don’t. It’s  _meant_  to be used in emergencies, such as panic attacks --or, in your case, if you have to go on a plane and don’t want to risk your powers ‘slipping out.’ Rare occurrences, maybe a few times a year. You shouldn’t even really use it more than once a month.”

You frown. “My parents used to use it on me twice a week at least. They taught me how to inject myself.”

Your uncle looks like he’s about to have a stroke. “Well, fortunately, it won’t kill you --though I would imagine you’ve built up a pretty good tolerance to it by now.”

“So that’s why I kept almost burning through the countdown every time I injected,” you murmur to yourself.

“Yeah. Well, on the upside, if you’re ever kidnapped you’ll probably snap out of it quick enough to escape.” He sighs and presses his bottle of beer against the bridge of his nose. “I mean this in all love and grace, but your parents are fucking idiots.”

“You ain’t alone in sharing that opinion.”

“Okay, back to the point at hand. You said your friend --Wade--has killed people for some pretty petty shit. He’s a fucking team leader, so why can’t you go back?”

You stare down at the half-empty carton of ice cream in your hands. “I didn’t say good-bye before I left. They’re gonna hate me for that.”

Your uncle sighs, drains his beer, then stands and pats your shoulder. “People do stupid shit all the time. It’s life. If these people are as worth crying over as you think they are, they’ll forgive you.” He chucks his beer bottle in the recycling bin. “Turn out the light when you’re done. Try to get to sleep before the sun comes up.”

You’re left to stare at the slowly melting carton of ice cream, teeth digging into your lower lip as you dare to hope for the impossible.

 

* * *

 

“Do you really think they’d take me back?” You ask a few days later as you help your uncle wash up from dinner.

“I would,” he replies with an easy smile.

You quash the hope swelling in your chest. “I can’t even forgive myself. How are they going to?”

“We’re all our toughest critics.” He sets a dry stack of plates in the cupboard and smacks the door shut. “Would it be a easier if you could reach out first, test the waters?”

You huff. “Yeah, but I left my phone at the mansion so they couldn’t track me. So, yeah. No. Not an option I have right now.”

 

* * *

 

You’re just about to head in from training the very next morning when your uncle stops you and tosses a burner phone at you. You stare down at the device. “What’s this for?”

“You said you didn’t have a way to get in touch with your friends.” He shrugs. “Now you do. I already put Charles’s number in there.”

You stare at the phone like it’s a bomb that’s about to go off.

Your uncle just laughs and pats your shoulder as he walks inside.

 

* * *

 

You spend the next three days staring at the phone.

You want to call. You want to call so badly. You want to see if you can come home, if you’d still be welcome.

You’re also terrified by the possibility that you might be told no.

On the fourth day, your uncle finally shoves you outside with the instructions to ‘do something with your body until your brain turns back on again.’

You settle for chopping wood, mindlessly setting up logs and splitting them with your ax. Your mind never strays from the burner phone in your pocket. You can feel it there, feel it pressing against your leg.

You want to call. You want to hear their voices.

With a sigh, you set the ax down and tromp over to a nearby tree. You plop down in the shade cast by the leaves and take the phone out of your pocket.

It’s crude, barely more than a flip phone --meant for making calls, taking calls, and not much else.

You flip it open and pull up the contact list.

Professor Xavier’s number stares up at you, almost taunting you.

_You’ve tried to throw firecrackers into one of the resident’s rooms, broken eighteen windows, crashed a boat, and blown up three microwaves_ , You tell yourself.  _If he didn’t write you off after all of that, he’ll pick up the fucking phone for you_.

You hit the dial button.

“This is Professor Charles Xavier,” he answers after the third ring. “To whom am I speaking?”

You gulp and force yourself to speak. “Professor?”

“Y/N.” The smile is audible in his voice. “I’m glad to hear from you.”

You can feel your throat tense, and you’re suddenly blinking back tears. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“I’m inclined to agree. Where would you like to start?”

 

* * *

 

You talk to the Professor for an hour, during which he reassures you that the senior residents and staff at Xavier’s are used to handling mutants with serious risks involved with their powers.

“We’re more than capable of handling everything we’ve discussed,” the Professor says. “We can help you and keep everyone else safe. You have my word.”

You wipe stray tears off your cheeks. “How is everyone? On my team?”

“They miss you a great deal. Your departure was unexpected, and they’re concerned for your well-being. I’ve assured them you’re safe, but as per my agreement with your uncle, I haven’t told them where you are.”

You wipe your nose on the back of your hand. “And Piotr?”

“He’s looking forward to when you come home. He misses you dearly.”

Your chest aches at the knowledge of causing your beloved boyfriend so much pain and distress. “Have you given away my room yet?”

“Your room --and your space on the X-Force--are still awaiting your return.” He pauses, then adds, “Would you like to speak to your friends? I know they’d love to hear from you.”

“Please?” You mange after a moment of nervous overthinking.

“Of course. Would you like me to call them up now?”

You eek out a “yes,” and count the seconds that it takes for the sounds of muffled chatter to fill the line as your friends file into the room.

There’s the sound of the phone rattling against the desk in the Professor’s office, and then Charles speaks again. “Alright, everyone’s here. You’re on speaker phone.”

Your throat locks up. You can’t speak. You feel like you’re going to pass out.

Several agonizingly silent moments pass.

“Whenever you’re ready,” the Professor adds, voice gentle and encouraging.

You take a deep breath, close your eyes, and will yourself to talk. “Hey guys. How’s life?”

Their reaction is immediate. Loud cheers and laughter flood your phone’s tiny speaker.

“Holy shit!” Wade crows. “Luke Skywalker from The Last Jedi! Can I have your autograph?”

“Please,  _please_ , come home soon,” Ellie begs as you laugh at Wade’s quip. “He’s been such an  _asshole_  without you here.”

“What can I say?” Wade says in a tone that conveys he’s both smiling and feels no remorse for whatever he’s done whatsoever. “I miss my best friend and honorary little sister.”

“If you’re not back in forty-eight hours, I’m going to shoot him,” Nathan adds in a tone that conveys he’s really not serious. “How are you, kid?”

“Oh, you know,” You manage with a shaky laugh. “I’m hanging in there.”

“Where are you?” Neena asks. “Can we come pick you up?”

“Sorry to say that my current location’s classified. And I’m not just being an ass on that. It’s... it’s for someone else’s safety.”

“Say no more,” Wade says. “So, when are you coming back?”

“I take it I’m still welcome on the team?” You ask, heart pounding in your chest.

“Well,  _duh_. I thought that would be obvious.” Wade’s quiet for a moment, then adds in a more sincere voice, “We really miss you, sis. Life sucks without you here.”

“Before I come back,” You blurt out before anyone else can talk or you lose your nerve. “There’s some... stuff you guys should know about me.”

It all comes tumbling out --the incident with the teenage boys when you were five, the accident with your best friend when you were seven, the episode in the woods with the men when you were thirteen, the guards you killed in Harmony so you could get your hands on more serum. By the time you’re done, the line is deadly silent.

Russell speaks first. “I don’t think any of that is your fault. Even the Harmony stuff. Your parents conditioned you to think that you're a monster and the only thing keeping everyone else safe is the serum.”

“I’m with Russell on this one,” Wade agrees. “Besides, bigots aren’t people, so it’s not murder.”

“It is to me,” You murmur.

“Well, my kill count is still higher than yours. If I’m allowed to live here, then so are you.”

You can’t help but smile at that.

“Hang on, let’s take a vote. Everyone who wants Y/N to come home, raise your hand.” There’s a pause, and then Wade continues. “Yupp. All in favor of your coming home, Professor included.”

That makes tears well up in your eyes. “You’re sure.”

“Yes!” everyone shouts in unison.

You giggle and wipe away the tears before they can soak your face. “Can I talk to Piotr for a moment? In private?”

There’s a brief amount of shuffling, and then it’s just Piotr’s voice on the line. “Hang on. Let me get to hallway.” There’s more shuffling, the sound of him breathing, and then a door closing in the background. “ _Privet, myshka_.”

You can’t help it; you start crying. “Piotr --babe--I’m so fucking sorry--”

He shushes you gently. “Easy,  _lyublyu_. Don’t make yourself sick.”

“--I just felt like I had to leave, you know?” You continue, words pouring out without any help from you. “I didn’t want to hurt any of you, and I just kept thinking what would have happen if I did, and I’d never be able to live myself if I came out of one of my episodes and realized that I had killed one of you, and--”

“Y/N.” His voice is loving, but firm. “You need to take breath. Please.”

You stop and do your best to keep from hyperventilating. “I’m really, really,  _really_  sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,  _moya lyubov’_. How are you? Are you alright?”

“I’m in one piece, staying hydrated, and eating my vegetables. Does that count as alright?”

He lets out a soft laugh. “ _Da_. For now.”

You sniff loudly, breathing still shaky from your earlier cry session. “So, if I come back home, will you take me back?”

There’s a moment of silence, and when Piotr speaks again he sounds confused. “I was unaware we weren’t together. In our relationship, not physical proximity.”

You let out a nervous laugh. “I was certain you would hate me for leaving like I did. If not that, I figured the serum stuff would do it.”

He sighs. “Oh,  _myshka_ , I could never hate you.”

He says it with such tenderness and conviction that you start crying again. “I was afraid you would never want to see me again.”

“No,  _myshka_. You are the light of my world. I have missed you,  _da_ , but I want you to come back. I want us to be together.”

You let out a sob. “And what about the serum stuff? And my episodes? Pete, I’ve killed people.”

“Wade has point; I think almost everyone in mansion has kill record. To dismiss you for same thing would be hypocritical.”

“Yeah, but this wasn’t a mission or shit like that. Especially the Harmony incident. I knew what I was doing, Piotr. It wasn’t an accident.”

He’s quiet for a minute. “I think... I think Russell is right, too. Your parents have trained you to believe you are monster; when you believe such things about yourself, you end up becoming them.”

“So... what now?” You ask, lips quivering.

“I think you need help,  _myshka_. You need help in learning to love yourself as much as the people around you do. I think that, when you learn how to do that, you will have better control over yourself.”

“And what happened to all your rules about not killing?” You press, voice flat and dejected.

“These are different circumstances, Y/N,” he says firmly. “If you had not needed the serum, would you have gone to Harmony?”

“No.”

“And why did you need serum?”

“To control my episodes.”

“And who has taught you that?”

“...My parents.”

“I rest case.”

You can’t help but chuckle at the happiness and conviction in his voice. “So, that’s that, huh? You think I should come home?”

“I think,” he says carefully, “you need a support group to help you through your healing process. I don’t doubt that whoever you are with will be there for you, but I also know there are several people here who want to help you. Especially me.”

You can’t help but grin. “You make a very compelling case, Mr. Rasputin.”

He chuckles softly. “I would hope so.”

“Just to give you fair warning, I’m going to be clinging to you like a baby koala for  _weeks_  once I come back.”

“I can live with that. So, when will you be home,  _myshka_?”

“Soon,” you decide as you look up at the waning sky. “I have a couple things I need to do, and I need the night sky to navigate with.”

“ _Khorosho_. Be safe. I love you, Y/N.”

“I love you too, Piotr.” You hang up, even though it almost kills you to do so, and let out a deep sigh.

It’s all better than you could’ve ever hoped for. Your friends still love you, the Professor’s willing to help you, Piotr still wants to be your boyfriend, and you still have a home in Xavier’s.

You grin, then push yourself off the ground and run towards your uncle’s house.

You have packing to do.

 

* * *

 

“Thanks for letting me stay, uncle.”

You’re on the front porch of the farmhouse, flight jacket and goggles on and backpack strapped in place. It’s one in the morning, meaning that the stars are in full view and that you don’t have to worry about being spotted by just about anyone as you fly back home.

He grins and clasps your shoulder. “Anytime, punk. But you might consider coming around more often. I like having you here.”

“Yeah, I’m free labor.”

“Exactly.” He laughs, then holds out his hand. “Can I see the phone I gave you for a moment?”

You frown and hand it to him.

He taps at the buttons --it has a keypad, which you’re pretty sure makes it older than the Earth itself--and hands it back. “My number --well, one of them. That way if you need to stop by again, you can make sure I’m here instead of doing classified things in classified places.”

You pocket the phone and hug him. “Thanks, uncle. Try to stay safe while I’m gone.”

He pats your back. “Go on, punk. Go home to your boyfriend.”

You give him one last squeeze, then run off the porch and fly into the night sky.

It was time to go home.

 

* * *

 

You have to stop and rest once the sun comes up to avoid overheating and being spotted. You update Charles, then hunker down in a tree and eat the sandwich your uncle packed you before taking a nap. Once it’s dark enough, you start flying again, using the stars to find your way back.

It’s late when the mansion finally comes into view, and you honestly didn’t expect anyone to be waiting up for you, so it’s surprising to see several lights on at the back of the house. You circle around back and land on the lawn space there --without wiping out--and start jogging towards the house.

There’s an audible commotion inside, and then the back door smacks open and Wade’s coming at you at a dead sprint.

You let out a delighted shriek, toss your backpack aside, and brace yourself for impact.

Wade scoops you off your feet and spins you around in a massive hug. “You’re back! Oh, mighty Cthulhu, this is better than an orgasm!”

“Don’t be gross!” You cackle as you wrap your arms around his neck to steady yourself.

“Honey, you knew I was not that kind of a girl when you met me.” Before you can protest or heckle him, he turns around and sets you down. “Alright, boyfriend privileges.”

Before you can ask what he means, you find yourself swept up in the arms of Piotr.

_Piotr_. Wonderful, human, warm, soft,  _sweet_  Piotr.

You cling to your boyfriend like he’s life itself and start crying.

“Welcome home,  _myshka_ ,” he murmurs as he kisses the top of your head.

You’ve never wanted to kiss him more than you want to now --so you do exactly that. You tilt your head up, cup his face with your hands, and press your lips against his.

Piotr kisses you back, thumbs skimming over the swell of your cheeks, and completely ignores the loud, obnoxious cheers from Wade.

“I missed you,” Your murmur against his lips. 

“I missed you, too.”

“Alright,” Ellie says after a long moment of uninterrupted lip lock. “It’s our turn to say hi to Y/N.”

Piotr breaks the kiss with a bashful smile and lets you go.

Ellie, Yukio, and Russell all swarm you at once, latching on to you like they think you’re about to fly off at a moment’s notice.

Once they finally let go you’re swept into a warm hug by Neena. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to be back,” You manage, slightly out of breath from over-excitement.

Last, but not least, is Nathan. You get an actual hug out of him --not his usual one-arm side hug deal, but a full on bear hug. “Welcome home, kid.”

You can’t help but smile.

You’re home.

 

* * *

 

The first thing you do is take a shower --a proper one, with actual water pressure, unlike the pitiful attempts you’d been forced into at your uncle’s house.

Next, you eat a proper meal --fruits and vegetables supplied by Piotr, Cheetos supplied by Wade. You’re starving after a day of flying, and clear your plate in minutes.

After that, you pack your stuff away and scamper off to Piotr’s room, hellbent on spending the night snuggled in your boyfriend’s loving, muscular embrace. He’s in the shower when you pop in, so you plop down on the bed and call your uncle.

He picks up on the first ring. “Hey, punk. How’re ya doing?”

“Good. I made it back safe.”

“Thanks for letting me know. How’d the reunion go?”

“Really good, actually. Wade hug-tackled me.”

“That sounds like him, based on what you told me. What about your boyfriend?”

You glance over at the bathroom --the shower’s still running, and Piotr’s singing under his breath to himself--and grin. “Ah... he’s in the shower right now.”

Your uncle chuckles. “So things are going well, I take it.”

“You could say that.” The water shuts off, and you start wrapping things up. “Anyway, thanks for letting me stay with you.”

“No problem. Hey, just so you know, I’m going to be out on a job for a few months. I’ll be in touch when I’m back.”

“Well, I guess I timed things well,” You mutter.

“I was supposed to leave three weeks ago. You’re more important.”

You can’t help but smile softly. “Thanks.”

“Anytime. Take care, punk.”

The call disconnects with a click.

You look up and start when you realize that Piotr’s been watching you.

He’s leaning against the bathroom door frame, dressed in his pajamas and arms crossed over his chest. “Who was that,  _myshka_?”

“My, uh... benefactor,” You say. “I called them to let them know I made it back safe.”

Piotr eyes the burner phone for a moment, suspicion evident in his features, before ultimately sighing and nodding. “That was very considerate of you,  _lyublyu_. However, I think we should go to bed. It is late.”

“I’m already in bed,” You tease as you wriggle to your side. “You’re the one who’s out of bed.”

He chuckles as he turns off his bedside lamp, then settles down next to you.

You nestle against his chest and let out a sigh when his arms wrap around you. “I’ve missed this.”

“So have I.” He presses his lips against your forehead. “Rest well,  _myshka_. I love you.”

“I love you too, Piotr.”

 

* * *

 

“Y/N.”

“Piotr.” You press yourself against his side.

“ _Myshka_.”

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

“Hey,” you say as you clamber into his lap, forcing him to push his chair away from his desk so that you don’t bump yourself. “I warned you I was going to be like a baby koala, and you said you were fine with that.”

He chuckles and wraps his arms around you. “I suppose I did. Anyway, your timing is good. I have things I want to show you.”

You twist so you can see the screen of his laptop, then frown as he clicks through a few different tabs.

There’s one that compares meditation apps, a few on disorders like anxiety, PTSD, and bipolar disorder, and several hosting articles about abuse and abusive parents.

“Babe, what is all this?”

“Research.” He kisses your cheek. “You’re not going through this alone anymore, Y/N. I’m going to be with you every step of the way.”

You feel like you’re going to melt under the full force of his love and dedication for you. You press your face against his shoulder. “I can’t promise I’m going to be very good at this. I’ve always done things on my own.”

“You don’t have to promise me anything,  _dorogaya moya_ ,” he murmurs as he rubs his hands up and down your back. “I’m doing this because I love you, not because I’m expecting something out of you.”

“I love you,” You mumble into his neck, far too swept away in the wake of his ceaseless affection and devotion to say much else. “Thank you.”

“I love you too,  _myshka_. And you’re welcome.”

You stay as you are for a while, simply content to curl up against him and bask in his love for you.

You know that you’ve got a long road ahead of you --a hard road. A painful road.

There’s no way it was ever going to be easy, but you know it’ll be bearable if Piotr’s by your side.


End file.
